Because it represents what many believe to be the FIRST example of something - something that is really common decades later in a totally different digital context.īen: What did you start to learn about this figure? But the basic building blocks were always recognizable.Īmory: And this guy Phil, the ephemera correspondent for Vox? He’s been slightly obsessed ever since he found out about it.īen: Honestly so have we. There were different versions of the image. It was just this recurring, mysterious piece of graffiti. And yet, for a long time, nobody knew why. And, I was really interested in how something so ephemeral as this graffiti could make it onto a monument and actually endure to be like a part of World War Two history.Īmory: This graffiti is part of World War II history because, during the war, this little doodle wasn’t just here.īen: Everywhere as in ALL OVER THE GLOBE. Phil: This was part of the design of the monument from the beginning.

The image and text is literally carved into the stone of this memorial. Even though it’s meant to feel like a secret, it’s not. All peering over a horizontal line that looks like a wall. It’s this little bald head with beady eyes and a big droopy nose and two sets of little fingers. In some cases they're drawn differently, but two dots and then it's just a line drawing.īen: The line drawing is extremely spare. Phil: The eyes are basically usually two dots. Hiding in plain sight on the World War II memorial in Washington D.C. (Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images)Īmory: Kilroy was here. This Jphoto shows the graffiti 'Kilroy was here' made famous by US GI's during WWII and engraved on a panel at the WWII Memorial in Washington, DC. Kind of hidden in the corner is a little drawing, and it's of a man peeking over a wall, his giant nose is kind of hanging over it and under it, it says Kilroy was here. Phil: And I finally peek around and over a fence just beyond it. But this secret treasure he was looking for? THAT is what drew him to this monument. Phil didn’t feel much of a connection to that. But I had heard that there was this secret thing hidden around the corner and so I go, I'm looking for it, I don't see it.īen: The 'it' here was not the memorial itself. And they all have labels of different states on them, representing everyone who went and fought and died in World War Two. And so it's very imposing, these tall stone columns. Phil: It's a set of columns arranged in the circle and there at the other end of the National Mall opposite the Lincoln Memorial and near the Washington Monument. But it's a big deal and it's very solemn.īen: Can you remind us what it looks like? And so I walked down to the World War two memorial and it's this very serious, beautiful monument. And that automatically intrigued me because any time there's a secret, I want to hunt it down and see what it is. Phil: I had just moved to Washington, D.C., and I'd heard that there was this secret hidden at the World War two memorial. Even though it still has echoes all over today’s world.

About something that was ephemeral back in World War II. Phil: I'm very proud that I got ephemera correspondent on my business cards.īen: Phil’s search for this secret treasure was for a video he was making. Phil makes those explainer videos for Vox. Like you make the explainers, you make the Vox explainers.Īmory: Yep. Do you know what I mean? Like they're like like God.

It was something he was doing for work.īen: I feel like a certain set of people you are so famous for. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.īen Brock Johnson: A few years ago, a man named Phil Edwards was looking for a secret treasure from World War II, even though he felt no real deep connection to World War II. The transcript has been edited from our original script for clarity. This content was originally created for audio. An online database of 'Kilroy Was Here' sightings.Kilroy's roots in Quincy, Massachusetts.Phil Edwards' Vox explainer, ' The World War II meme that circled the world'.In the first episode of our meme series, we tell the story of where 'Kilroy Was Here' came from, how it spread, and what it tells us about the essence of memes. And, more surprisingly, the image that's often considered to 'the first meme' appeared as early as the 1940s.Ī figure with a bulbous head and sausage fingers, peering over a wall, mysteriously popped up all over the globe during World War II, accompanied with three simple words: “Kilroy Was Here.” The phrase’s original meaning may come from the belly of warships, but what it came to represent bears many characteristics of a true-blue internet meme. But the term “meme” was coined in the 1970s - before the birth of the internet - by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. We often think of memes as living solely online.

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